How powerful will the building ministry get?

But the SPD, the Greens and the Liberals are still struggling to find the exact size of the department. It depends on how powerful the new ministry will really be, how much budget it will receive and thus how much political power.

So it is not enough to outsource the building and home areas from the interior ministry, which will in future be led by the SPD, and transfer them to the new building ministry. It is also questionable whether the SPD will succeed in getting the designated green economics and climate minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck to surrender areas from his house.

“The responsibilities for energy policy in the building sector should move to the new building ministry,” said Lamia Messari-Becker, civil engineer and professor at the University of Siegen, the Handelsblatt. “More climate protection in the building sector is one of the main challenges of the next few years. If the energy requirements and funding policy are further decided in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, then the new building ministry will turn out to be an insignificant dwarf ministry, ”said the former member of the Advisory Council for Environmental Issues (SRU).

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The SPD runs the risk of missing the goal of the future traffic light government of creating 400,000 new affordable apartments annually in this legislative period – if major decisions are made in another house that could make building more expensive, Messari-Becker said .

The Social Democrats know that, but they are buttoned up. One does not want to spark the minister, it is reluctantly said in the parliamentary group. The message would be clear: If the SPD demands areas that it does not receive later, the designated Minister for Construction and Housing, Klara Geywitz, will be damaged from the start.

There are also other unanswered questions: Will the Ministry of Justice hand over the lead on the subject of rent regulation? Or does the Ministry of Transport even assume responsibility for digitization, if not for civil engineering? Does the Ministry of Finance have responsibility for property promotion?

All three ministries will be FDP-led in the future – and the liberals are skeptical. “The cut of the new building ministry has to be carefully considered,” said Daniel Föst, housing and construction expert for the FDP, the Handelsblatt. “A powerful superstructure is required to implement the ambitious goals of our building campaign. However, I consider individual topics from existing departments – such as tenancy law – to be difficult to remove without context. ”

Housing industry is calling for a reduction in bureaucracy

Like the scientist Messari-Becker, the housing industry is calling for construction and housing policy issues to be bundled in the newly created ministry. “From our point of view, the future building ministry should in any case also bring together the issues of urban and regional development, rural areas and spatial planning under one roof,” said Axel Gedaschko, President of the Central Association of the Housing Industry (GdW), the Handelsblatt.

Existing inequalities and structural differences between town and country, but also between structurally poor and structurally rich regions, could only be eliminated on the basis of a coordinated spatial planning and an all-German funding system.

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This means that, for example, responsibility for rural areas would have to be transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Construction. In addition, the GdW calls for the topics of heat and efficiency in buildings, as well as energy research and the heat transition, to be transferred from the Ministry of Economics to the Ministry of Construction. The digitization of the building industry is to be transferred from the Ministry of Transport.

With such a layout, according to Gedaschko, the new ministry would also make a significant contribution to reducing bureaucracy. The minister is “happy to help with all technical questions, including the division of the ministry”.

Future building minister Geywitz speaks of a “huge task”

The designated building minister Geywitz, born in Potsdam in 1976, is so far rather unknown in federal politics, but was a member of the Brandenburg state parliament for many years. Two years ago, the future Chancellor Olaf Scholz had unsuccessfully applied for the SPD party chairmanship with her. Geywitz is now part of the party.

“The task is huge,” she said on Monday when she was introduced by Scholz as Minister of Construction. “But it’s a job I’m really looking forward to.” The apartments – 100,000 of the 400,000 new apartments are said to be socially subsidized – are now needed. And she noted that in the future, energy-saving and climate-friendly construction will also have to be done.

The Federal Chamber of Architects called for the work structures to be quickly established in order to initiate a building turnaround. In the next few months, it was said, “decisive steps” would be necessary in terms of affordable housing, rural areas and inner cities.

Jürgen Michael Schick, President of the Real Estate Association Germany (IVD), warned against designating new building areas with a watering can in order to reach the target of 400,000 apartments. When building new buildings, it is important to concentrate on those regions that continue to have a high level of influx and corresponding housing shortages. In rural areas and structurally weaker regions, one should instead prioritize the building stock and the conversion of vacant commercial space into living space.

More: Last hurdle cleared: Greens agree to coalition agreement

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